It's About Life

 "The glory of God is a human being fully alive!" This was said by the second century Church Father Irenaeus. In Christ God seeks to restore us to what God intended for us from the very beginning of creation, which is to be people who are the image of God! Christ calls us out of our tombs of sin and self-centeredness to become truly alive in showing God's goodness and mercy. This is why Jesus said to Martha just before he raised Lazarus from the dead, "Did I not say to you that if you believed you would see the glory of God!" God is revealed in glory when we respond to God's call to life. In our world people try to make themselves alive through things that promote only themselves. Money, lifestyle choices, focus on sex, forays into the myriads of entrapping addictions --- all these do not remove the stone that covers our tombs. We end up settling for lives of disillusionment and disappointment because we don't see any other way. This is life far below what God wants for us. God in Christ makes us free through looking beyond ourselves to see God's love for us in Jesus' sacrifice for us on the Cross and in his resurrection from the dead. Instead of the false freedom of fulfilling our own desires, we can have the true freedom of being fulfilled by God's desire for us to live for God and for others. This is living in the light of what is good and beautiful. This is the evidence that God did send Jesus to show God's glory by giving us full and abundant life that is dazzlingly real and intriguingly everlasting!

It's About Grace

Grace is the source and spring for our experience of God's love and for expressing our faith in God through Jesus Christ. Grace entirely is God's gift to us and work in us! This happens through God's presence with us in Jesus and through Jesus' giving himself for us in his sacrifice for us on the Cross. God entered into all of human experience, both the best and the worst, and in this a bridge is made between us and God. Despite our unworthiness and sinfulness, God provides a way through Jesus that restores our relationship with God, making us (as Pope Gregory the Great emphasized) "friends of God." This is all God's doing and it depends completely on God's power, love, and goodness. It's all about grace!

It's About Faith

Love is the power of faith, and belief is the engine of faith. It is an immersion into an experience of God that happens when we trust Jesus, which means giving our lives to him! Believing in Jesus is to encounter the living God and this encounter affects everything about us! In fact, it actually makes us who we are. As Rich Mullens sings, "I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I did not make it, it is making me! It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man." We are like instruments played by a master musician, or paintings created in the distinctive style of a great artist. After all, life is about faith!

It's About Love

Love is the power of faith in Jesus Christ! It is difficult at times to understand how God is working in our lives, especially when things get tough. We may question why God allows us, others, and the world to suffer pain and problems, but our experience of God's love for us is what sustains us and carries us through. Without love (as the Apostle Paul says) our faith and our actions mean very little, but with love everything in our lives becomes significant and meaningful in God's plan, even those difficult things we all must face. Love -- God's love! -- is the "heart" of our relationship with God.

Starting With Need And Ending With Beauty

 Most people come to God because of a need in their lives. We seek God's help in dealing with a problem or crisis that we cannot handle ourselves. This is natural, and God graciously receives and responds to us with love and compassion. But God uses this as the starting point for calling us to a much fuller and meaningful relationship with him. God also is seeking us, and through our needs God invites us to know him not only as the God who meets us in our difficulties, but also as the God who wants to walk with us as a constant and loving presence in every aspect of our lives. When we know God this way, we live life in a growing awareness of God's love and always are responding to God with gratitude, thanks, and praise.

Purity Of Heart Is To Will One Thing

 Often Christians approach their commitment to Jesus in a casual, even half-hearted, manner. This is not what God wants for us. God wants us to put as much or more energy and dedication in following Jesus as many people devote to things like their careers, possessions, and even their hobbies. Those things are important, but Jesus wants us to make him and following him our first and foremost commitment in our lives. We can't serve God when our hearts and efforts are directed toward the things of this world instead of toward God. There is only one God, and all our interests in life are to be place under God's reign and used for God's purposes!

Sweet Child Of God

 The infinite God loves each one of us without limits! The very reason God became human and lived among us in Jesus is what Jesus himself said, "to seek and save that which was lost"! Jesus came not just to identify with us but to rescue us from our sin and rebellion and bring us back to what we are created from the very beginning to be - a loved and blessed child of the living God. Yes, God accepts and loves where we are, but in Jesus God seeks to bring us from where we are to where God wants us to be. When any of us allow Jesus to rescue us from our indifference, rebellion, and rejection of God in our lives, this is a cause for great celebration. Jesus tells us that all heaven is filled with joy, led by the Father of us all who sent Jesus to find us and bring us back to him safe and sound.